Frederick Seitz

Frederick Seitz (Deceased)

Credentials

Background

Dr. Frederick Seitz passed away on March 2, 2008. He was the former head of Rockefeller University, a former head of the National Academy of Sciences and the principal scientific advisor to the R.J. Reynolds medical research program. He was a co-founder of the George C. Marshall Institute, and later Chairman Emeritus of the Board. [1]

Seitz was the former principal scientific advisor to the RJ Reynolds medical research program. A May 2006 Vanity Fair article by Mark Hertsgaard outlines Seitz's central role in a $45 million “medical research” program in the 1970s and 1980s for tobacco-giant RJ Reynolds: [2]

“'They didn't want us looking at the health effects of cigarette smoking,' says Seitz, who is now 94— but it nevertheless served the tobacco industry's purposes. throughout those years, the industry frequently ran ads in newspapers and magazines citing its multi-million-dollar research program as proof of its commitment to science—and arguing that the evidence on the health effects of smoking was mixed,” Hertsgaard reported in the article.

“I spoke with Bill Hobbs [RJ Reynolds] about arranging an appointment for you with Dr. Fred Seitz, former head of Rockerfeller University and the principal scientific advisor to the RJ Reynolds medical research program. Bill told me that Dr. Seitz is quite elderly and not sufficiently rationalto offer advice.” [16]

“The petition project was a deliberate attempt to mislead scientists and to rally them in an attempt to undermine support for the Kyoto Protocol. The petition was not based on a review of the science of global climate change, nor were its signers experts in the field of climate science.” [7]

Seitz was actually the president of the National Academy of Sciences from 1962 to 1965, but after the incident regarding the Oregon Petition, the Academy tried to distance themselves from any association with Dr. Frederick Seitz. [20]

Seitz is listed as a signatory to the Leipzig Declaration, a 1995 open letter designed and spread by SEPP in conjunction with a group called the European Academy of Environmental Affairs. The declaration stated: “there does not exist today a general scientific consensus about the importance of greenhouse warming from rising levels of carbon dioxide.” [8]

According to SourceWatch, when a Danish journalist attempted to contact the 33 European scientists listed on the petition, 12 denied signing the petition and some had not even heard of the Leipzig Declaration. Of those that did admit to signing the letter, one was a doctor and another was an expert on flying insects. The declaration was then revised and many names were removed.

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